September 30th, Friday……

  Settlement was about to begin. Pei Qian was feeling both tired and apprehensive.

  After trying as hard as he could to spend money for a week—especially after opening up as many branches as he could and investing more money into Otto Technologies, Pei Qian finally managed to deplete his System Funds until 8.74 million yuan remained. That was already quite a miracle.

  The starting sum for this cycle had been twenty million yuan. At the moment, Pei Qian was still unsure exactly how much he had lost.

  That was because he still had to add the value of his fixed assets.

  The System’s fixed assets value was not updated in real time. It would only be refreshed once at the time of purchase and then once more on each settlement date.

  Still, Pei Qian guessed that there would not be too big of a problem.

  Up to this point, Pei Qian had the villa in Ming Yun Villas that he had bought very early on, as well as four other buildings. Each had been valued at 8.61 million, 32 million, 20 million, and 8.1 million yuan x 2.

  After some calculation, Pei Qian estimated that the total value of his fixed assets would come up to 76.81 million yuan this time. In other words, it would translate to about 7.68 million yuan more in the System Funds.

  If all went well, he would probably be able to convert (874+768-2000) x 0.1 = 360 thousand yuan.

  On top of that, he had been given a special mission. Even if he could not deduct the entire quota, he would still be able to deduct a portion of it. Then, he would not have worked in vain during this cycle.

  The system screen automatically appeared in front of Pei Qian.

  <System Funds: 7,390,000 + 9,630,000 (↓1,630,000)>

  Pei Qian was stunned. His mind began to fill with question marks.

  “???”


  What the hell?

  His Fixed Assets had only been worth 76 million yuan before this. How did it become 96 million yuan?

  Pei Qian quickly looked closely at the details and realized that every building had appreciated to a certain extent!

  The two buildings at Binhu District had appreciated from eight million yuan to twelve million yuan. The building in Dawn of Prosperous City where Pei Qian himself stayed had appreciated from 32 million yuan to 39 million yuan. Even the villa at Ming Yun Villas and the semi-commercial building at Shundong Gardens had appreciated.

  All in all, there had been an increase in value of close to twenty million yuan. As a result, the expected losses for this settlement was reduced from 3.58 million yuan to 1.63 million yuan!

  In other words, Pei Qian would only get a petty 195 thousand yuan in his Personal Wealth this time.

  Pei Qian smacked his forehead as the color drained from his face.

  The villa at Ming Yun Villas had appreciated because the nameless restaurant had become popular. Thus, the value of the entire area increased.

  The other buildings went without saying. On one hand, they had been affected by Sloth Apartments’ fame. On the other hand, it was because they had been renovated.

  Pei Qian had bought the three buildings in Dawn of Prosperous City and Binhu District for an extremely low price. The one in Binhu District, especially, had remained vacant for several years and ended up dilapidated. Each building had only cost five hundred thousand yuan.

  Yet, now, the buildings in Binhu District had been styled and renovated by a designer. That explained the significant improvement in the environment and the jump in their prices. Now, they were worth about as much as other buildings in the market and probably even more!

  Pei Qian had originally thought that, even if the actual value at settlement differed from his expectations, it would not differ that much. However, from the looks of the current situation, he had been very wrong.

  Two hundred thousand yuan of his Personal Wealth had disappeared just like that. Pei Qian wanted to vomit blood badly.

  That was even more painful than being stabbed in the back ten thousand times!

  Yet, he had no time to grieve. The screen continued to flash past in his vision.

  <This Cycle’s Special Task: There’s no end to learning. [Complete]>

  Pei Qian was stunned, and then he became elated.

  Full completion?

  At first, he had not been hopeful about completing this mission. He had thought that it would be good enough to deduct about two or three million yuan. Never would he have thought that he would be able to deduct the full amount!

  As for how he managed to achieve ‘full completion’, Pei Qian guessed that it could be attributed to several factors:

  He had successfully spent 1.6 million yuan worth of course fees and that showed that the System recognized He An and Qiu Hong’s true capabilities.

  He An and Qiu Hong had not held back a single bit of knowledge when teaching Pei Qian. Instead, they had imparted every bit of valuable information to him.

  Pei Qian’s understanding of games—and his own games in particular—had improved by a whole tier. Now, he had a more holistic view of game design concepts, the development of domestically-produced games, and so on.

  In other words, Pei Qian had been blindly producing games before this without any knowledge whatsoever; now, Pei Qian was still blindly producing games, but he knew much more.

  The System judged the outcome of Pei Qian’s learning by comparing his knowledge bank before and after the cycle.

  In the past, Pei Qian could be likened to a child in elementary school, who had passed a university examination by guessing blindly. Now, his knowledge bank was comparable to that of a pupil in middle school. Although he was still blindly answering the university examination, the System could still recognize an improvement.

  He could only say that life was full of surprises.

  Without any hesitation, Pei Qian chose to deduct that amount from the System Funds. He had worked so hard to incur losses during this cycle to obtain this reward for the special mission!

  If he added the 12.8 million yuan to the System Funds, he would only get ten thousand yuan more in his Personal Wealth. However, if he deducted it, he would get much more money!

  <System Funds: 0 + 9,630,000 (↓10,370,000)>

  <System Funds: 0 + 9,630,000 (↓10,370,000)>

  <Personal Wealth: 2,214,000 (↑1,040,000 x 110%)>

  <If you manage to convert more than two hundred thousand yuan at the end of this cycle, you will obtain a mysterious reward within the System’s regulations. [Redeemable]>

  <Unfinished project for this cycle: The research project in Otto Technologies’ laboratory. The product must be released into the market by the end of the next cycle.>

  At that point, Pei Qian patted his chest and heaved a long sigh of relief.

  Life was filled with ups and downs, and it was terrifying!

  At first, he had thought that he would only be able to get 160 thousand yuan. However, the special mission gave him 1.14 million yuan in the end.

  Pei Qian had over nine hundred thousand yuan in his Personal Wealth earlier. Ordinarily, he did not spend much either, but he could not avoid spending altogether. To take advantage of the System, he had to link his expenses with the company and then report them to the finance department. It could be a tedious process, and saving a few hundred yuan was hardly worth it.

  On top of that, he received about forty to fifty thousand yuan from the sale of Ruan’s skins every month. At the moment, that sum was not increasing significantly.

  That couldn’t be helped. Pei Qian himself had been cheated by GOG’s pricing model.

  Since Ruan was a product of crowdsourcing, gamers could buy his skins at a huge discount whenever new ones were released. Although they would subsequently be sold at the original price, few people would buy them by then.

  What’s more, GOG was focused on the overseas market at the moment. New heroes were still consistently being released by Hurricane Comic Company, and each hero needed new skins. Naturally, the research and development team could not afford to keep producing new skins for Ruan.

  Thus, even after three months, the money that Pei Qian earned from the sale of the skins had only come up to about a hundred thousand or so. It had not been as exciting as Pei Qian expected.

  Still, he was satisfied. Why should he complain? That was not a small sum.

  It was time to redeem his mysterious reward.

  <Mysterious reward: Upgrade in benefits. If you manage to convert more than eight hundred thousand yuan at the end of each cycle, you will obtain a ‘highly impactful’ mysterious reward. [Redeemable immediately]>

  Ever since the System was upgraded to version 2.0, Pei Qian had been offered a benefit at the end of every cycle. If he could convert up to two hundred thousand yuan of funds, he would be able to claim a mysterious reward.

  There were all types of mysterious rewards. For example, the mysterious reward for the previous cycle was the special mission for this cycle.

  This time, the mysterious reward was an upgrade in benefits. If he could convert at least eight hundred thousand yuan at the end of a cycle, he would be able to claim a ‘highly impactful’ mysterious reward. Since he had exceeded that conversion minimum for this cycle, he could immediately claim one mysterious reward.

  Pei Qian felt a little faint.

  No repeats!

  Still, the fact that he could claim the same reward twice was worth rejoicing over.

  He mainly credited himself for refusing to give up on incurring losses during this cycle. Converting more than eight hundred thousand yuan meant having to earn more than eight hundred million yuan in profits. That would be far more difficult than incurring significant losses.

  Once again, Pei Qian claimed his reward.

  Pei Qian was stunned. Once again, he read the line of words.

  Almost immediately, his mind filled with question marks.

  When Pei Qian read the words ‘highly impactful’ and ‘mystery reward’ earlier, he subconsciously assumed that the award would be much better than the previous mystery reward. Why else would it be described as ‘highly impactful’?

  Now, he finally realized that ‘highly impactful’ did not necessarily mean that the impact would be to himself; neither did it necessarily mean that the impact would be good!

  Take this reward, for example. A random breakthrough in skills?

  Would those skills have anything to do with the projects that Pei Qian had been working on?

  What the h*ll……?

  Pei Qian had been in a good mood just before, but now, he was feeling down again.

  Indeed, the System was insistent in making a fool out of him.

  <Long-term Reward: If you manage to convert more than eight hundred thousand yuan at the end of each cycle, you will obtain a ‘highly impactful’ mysterious reward.>

  <Unfinished project for this cycle: The research project in Otto Technologies’ laboratory. The product must be released into the market by the end of the next cycle.>

  After all the ups and downs, Pei Qian finally calmed down again.

  The next cycle would last until January 31st. There were only four months, and it was a short cycle without any special missions.

  Although Pei Qian had no idea how the next cycle would go, he was renewed with motivation.

  He had ten million more yuan in the System Funds for the next cycle. That meant that he could buy more fixed assets now. In addition to the help that Teacher He had offered to Tengda Games……

  Pei Qian’s would set a preliminary goal: to lose twenty million yuan!